Colours
by housemartius
Summary: A legionnaire, a praetor and an abundance of colours.
**disclaimer:** characters belong to Rick Riordan

this was actually part of a series called "vivat beauty queen" but after thinking about it, a multi chaptered fic feels like a commitment of sorts. and since i'm so irregular with my writing i decided to delete that. one-shots are more my style. and the anxiety that thing was giving me was horrible. this is better.

this is a roman au with praetor!piper. enjoy~

* * *

New Rome seemed to glow in warm tones of yellow, red and orange from where Hazel was currently standing in the Garden of Bacchus. The clouds were covered in them, with soft hints of pink here and there as well, as the gentle wind carried them far away.

Hazel breathed in the sweet, late afternoon air. She loved watching the sunset. She loved the colours, the lazy atmosphere, the inner peace it offered her.

As she sat down close to the statue of the wine god himself, her back against the cold marble for support, she thought that perhaps a painting of the scenery in front of her was long overdue. After all, it'd been about five months since she'd arrived at Camp Jupiter. Her new sketchbook could use a little more colour.

She ran one of her small hands over the hard, white cover of the book resting on her lap, silently regretting the decision to leave her pencils and markers back at her bunk in the Fifth Cohort. She had no idea when the sky would look this beautiful again, and she desperately wanted to fill up an entire page (or ten) with its breathtaking hues.

That was one of the things Hazel loved most about drawing: to have the unique ability to turn a sad, white page into an abundant display of colours. Warm, cold, dark, it honestly didn't matter. She just wanted to marvel at all the diverse tones the world had to offer, to capture them in her sketchbook so she could keep them with her all the time.

Hazel was too imersed in the beauty around her to notice the sound of approaching footsteps. Nor was she listening when they stopped altogether inches away from her.

"Great view, isn't it?"

Hazel jumped slightly at the nonchalant comment, rich golden eyes settling on the figure of a girl. She had her arms crossed over her purple camp t-shirt, baggy jeans and a scarlet cape drapped on her shoulders, that moved majestically in sync with the light breeze. Her chocolate brown hair, cut choppy as usual, seemed lighter due to the setting sun, but her smile was as bright as Hazel had ever seen it.

Tugging on her own shirt, Hazel flashed her eyes downwards in an attempt to hide her blush.

"Hi, Piper," she murmured in greeting. Her gaze was drawn to the laid-back praetor once more, not able to resist looking at her pretty freckled face, a shy smile making its way to her heated face. "It's beautiful."

Piper let out an amused chuckle, eyes drifting towards the valley once more. Hazel followed it, shoulders slumping just the tiniest bit as her stance relaxed. New Rome looked so serene...

"Does the sketchbook I offered you live up to your artistic needs?"

Hazel felt herself choking slightly on the bit of air she'd just inhaled as she heard the slightly teasing tone, but was quick to cover it up. "Y-yes, it's great! I really appreciate it!". That had come off a bit louder and higher pitched than she'd intended; she could feel her face reddening again, but Piper ignored it completely.

"Good, I'm glad it's of use to you," the praetor grinned widely and, without warning, sat down (without any regard whatsoever to her blood red cape) next to the young legionnaire. "Can I see it?"

For a few seconds, Hazel was unresponsive, golden orbs resting uncertainly on the white book. She had never shared her artwork with anyone before.

She felt a warm, gentle pressure on her shoulder, and looked up to see Piper smiling reassuringly at her. "Only if you want to though."

Hazel had been suspecting for a while now that children of Venus could somehow sense and pick up on other people's emotions, especially the ones related to love; having watched Piper closely ever since day one at camp, she'd witnessed her use some of her powers (her charmspeak, though rare and dangerous, was the one Hazel thought to be the most fascinating), and a lot of them seemed to have to do with raw intuition.

At first, she'd not been so sure she liked hanging around the love goddess' descendants. She felt they could read her too well. It was as if Hazel was some sort of riddle or puzzle to them, one they could, if given the time, figure out completely if they tried hard enough.

But she'd grown comfortable around Piper. If the praetor had knowledge of some of Hazel's romantic secrets (which the daughter of Pluto sincerely and ardently hoped wasn't the case), she didn't let on at all, nor did she tease Hazel about it (unlike a few of her siblings had). Piper was all hearty laughter and lively, broad grins when she was in a good mood; yet she could easily put you in your place with a couple of smartly chosen words in a matter of seconds, and she still preserved her unique love for good-naturedly (when she was in a _good_ mood) pranking her fellow campers. Piper was soft spoken words and sound advice, taking care of others and protecting those in need. Hazel could see why people loved and respected her.

Wordlessly, she handed Piper the sketchbook, noticing how the praetor's eyes widened for just a second before they glowed dazzlingly just as much as the scenery around them.

Piper thanked her and started going through the drawings, taking her time to carefully inspect all the pictures, voicing her admiration whenever one of them really caught her attention.

"You really like colouring," Piper breathed out as she closed the book. "So many colours in here."

Hazel couldn't help the giddy smile that followed, increasingly clammy hands tangling into each other as she was faced with Piper's calm yet adoring expression.

"Yeah, it's my favourite part." she added after a short pause. She felt like saying more. She felt like telling Piper just how much the colours meant to her, but refrained from speaking. The atmosphere was too peaceful to ruin with words, and Piper looked absolutely gorgeous in the sunset. And their gazes were still connected.

And Hazel was breathless.

Piper couldn't possibly know that the colours which Hazel had been wanting to put on paper the most were all right there, staring tenderly at her.

"I'm impressed." Piper stated.

Hazel briefly wondered if Piper would let her capture them if she asked kindly enough. All those glorious, magnificent shades.

"Me too."

* * *

everyone's hella gay for piper's eyes. i am, you are, it's a curse...

feedback is always appreciated y'all~~


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